BA Marketing & Management - Bianca Mureșan
Bianca Mureșan graduated from BA Marketing and Management at UEA after moving to Norwich from Romania.
She has since been working as an events specialist. We discussed how her time at UEA prepared her for going into working in events management.
What does your current career entail?
Currently I’m freelancing as an event assistant for an event production agency called GoTo Live based in Staffordshire.
I’m also an on-site event manager for an event experience company called Fever in London.
An average day at work for me is very varied: one day it’s all admin work, sorting out numbers and plans, and then when I am on site I’m running errands, chasing suppliers, saying “no, you can’t park your massive telehandler here”.
It’s either doing admin emails all day or doing 30,000 steps on site! But it’s really rewarding when you are finishing up on site and you see the event happening around you, and you know that you helped that to become a reality.
What drew you to study at UEA?
I am from Romania, and when I was 17 or 18 I attended an international summer camp in Ramsgate, and the staff there were university students.
I made friends with one of the staff who spoke very highly of UEA, where he was studying History, so when it came to picking the top five universities that I wanted to attend, UEA was in my top two.
I wasn’t able to attend any open days at UEA, but the university’s social media presence was very helpful because I was able to see photos and videos of the campus.
What did you like specifically about the Marketing and Management course?
I have always been interested in brands and how they affect our lives, but I also wanted to have a broader knowledge in a wider range of things.
The Marketing and Management course was interesting to me because in the first year you cover a wide range of topics, for example Economics.
I learned financial skills which have been useful for the financial aspect of my current job, and I wouldn’t have gained those finance skills if I had studied a different course.
What was the teaching like on the course?
I loved my Marketing lectures and seminars during third year, especially within the modules Marketing Law and Digital Marketing.
Consumer Law was the most challenging module, but also the most rewarding.
We always got a lot of extra material outside of lectures and seminars as well, for example practice papers and reading to do.
I didn’t really realise how much support we were given until I went to another university for my master's degree and did not get as much support.
What employability opportunities were available on this course?
During my second year we took part in the Adnams Employability Prize and I was a finalist, which was a really great experience that I still value today.
In my third year there was a national market research contest based on the Chartered Institute of Marketing. I worked with two people from my course that I didn’t know. We became really good friends and are still in touch to this day!
We learned a lot about marketing during the contest, and even though we didn’t end up in the final we developed a lot of skills simply through participating. The people running the course were interested in listening to feedback from students, and I was part of a focus group about the future of the course, which involved the transition from a BSc to a BA course.
How did you get involved with societies and the Students' Union?
The Students' Union has some really great roles available for students, and I became the Advocacy Assistant in my third year.
I did some work with social media for the Health and Science faculties, and I also conducted market research which tied in really well to my third year modules. I got a lot of experience in creating and using infographics, which I still use today.
In my second year I was selected to be Treasurer of the Business Society, and I was also President of the Cocktails Society. In my third year I was the Liaison Officer for the Business Society, which meant liaising between the Business Society and the Students' Union.
I organised a lot of social events for the Business Society, which helped to fuel my interest in event planning.
How did you feel when you graduated from UEA and went on to do your master's?
After graduation I did a master's in Events and Experience Management.
I based my dissertation for my master’s around music festivals in Eastern Europe compared to Western Europe, and part of the theory that I focused on for my dissertation was actually what I had learned while studying one of my modules at UEA.
I realised that I had gained quite a lot of valuable hands-on experience during my undergraduate degree, for example through my time in my roles in the Students' Union and in the societies.
CareerCentral was a good resource for finding jobs and experience before and after graduation, as they still send me emails with lists of opportunities that are only open to UEA students and graduates.
What advice would you give to current or prospective UEA students?
Don’t just show up to lectures and classes and call it a day.
You need to try and take every opportunity that UEA has to offer, because you don’t want to graduate and then realise that you have missed out on valuable chances. I would really recommend getting involved in running the social media for a society if you are studying marketing because it is great experience to put on your CV.